The Rules: Winners re-post this completely with their acceptance speech and have the privilege of awarding the next awards! The re-post should include a new set of people/blogs worthy of the award; and winners notify them of the great news!

Awarding the people who live in the moment,The noble who write and capture the best in life,The bold who reminded us what really mattered –Savoring the experience of quality time.

What makes a good acceptance speech?

Gratitude. Thank the people who helped you along the way.

Humour. Keep us entertained and smiling.

Inspiration. Make your story touch our lives.

My Acceptance Speech:

I would like to thank Alli from The Vintage Postcard for this honor, and I’d also like to congratulate her on her recent trip to New Zealand and the great stories and photos she has been sharing.

In my acceptance of the Vintage Reel Award I discussed some of the experiences that shaped my love for travel and the people who helped me along the way. For this post I’ve decided to talk about why I write, how my blog has grown, and my introduction into the greater blogging community.

I have operated a blog in one form or another for around a decade, usually involving spurts of writing followed by an eventual loss of interest. This blog actually began as a sports and entertainment blog years ago on blogspot, to which I only sporadically posted. After importing my blog into WordPress in 2012 I began writing about my travels, but it really wasn’t until the end of 2012 and early 2013 that I began posting with enough frequency to start getting recognized by my fellow bloggers in the community (it also helped that I finally learned to tag my posts).

That was when I discovered this vast new world known as the blogging community. I’ve been amazed at how supportive everyone is (I rarely see the type of flaming so characteristic of message boards on other sites). In spite of the fact that most of us are strangers from all over the world, there really is a sense of community.

So I would like to thank all of my fellow bloggers for your support. It is you who have inspired me to keep writing, to make this blog a labor of love rather than just an occasional hobby. Since the beginning of the year I have revamped my blog and turned it into a hub for all of my writing endeavors. In the process my blog has grown from just two followers in 2012 to almost sixty now–not nearly as impressive as some of the success stories I’ve seen from other blogs, but every new follower inspires me to keep going.

I have always loved to write–I wrote my first story in second grade and rarely stopped writing until graduating from college, when, as often happens, life got in the way and my writing was relegated to the back burner for much of my adult life. But that’s really just an excuse, because if you love to write, you find a way. I did manage to complete a novel over the course of the last decade, thanks in large part to being out of work for about 20 months, but it wasn’t until this blog started taking off (particularly the travel section) that I began writing regularly again, and remembering how rewarding it can be. The very act of putting my thoughts into words, of creating something from nothing, should be reward enough, but I won’t deny that it makes a huge difference from a motivational perspective to know there is an audience out there reading what I write. For that I am grateful to all of you.

I am also inspired by my visits to the blogs of my peers in the blogging community. There is so much great content out there, of which I’ve only scratched the surface. I am making it my mission to visit the blog of everyone who has visited mine. Each day I try to visit a few when I have time, but I still have a long way to go. In the meantime, for my list of nominees, here are the blogs that have stood out for me so far, in no particular order. Some are travel blogs, others are more creative arts-oriented or a mixture of both. All are worth a visit.